| Introduction |
BoJack's Theme is the instrumental theme score for BoJack Horseman.
Composition
Patrick Carney, the drummer for The Black Keys, composed BoJack's Theme with his uncle Ralph Carney.
Patrick created the score while testing out his equipment by starting with a click track on a Roland Jupiter-4 keyboard, and he layered in sound from an arpeggiator and drums. He then sent it to Ralph, who added tenor sax and fleshed out the rest of the sound.
The musical score was not originally intended for BoJack Horseman.
However, Noel Bright, one of the executive producers in the show, contacted Patrick Carney, as he was a Black Keys fan. Bright asked Patrick if he would be interested in composing an opening theme for the show. Patrick sent Bright the track he and Ralph had composed together. Bright liked it, stating in an interview “we knew it was right when we heard it.” Netflix approved of the track, and it became the opening theme of BoJack Horseman.[1]
Visuals
Excluding Escape from L.A. and The Showstopper, BoJack’s Theme is the opening theme music for each episode. There is an alternate version that plays near the end of Escape from L.A while BoJack returns to Hollywoo from Tesuque.
Notably, the background montage and BoJack's appearance during the theme often change, depending on what has happened in the show, up to that specific point. Characters may appear or disappear, if they are or are not involved with BoJack's life or living with him, or no longer have ties to the main plot, or if they are now deceased.
The 1st part: Morning in the House
The montage begins with a shot of BoJack's House at sunrise, and it zooms from the bottom of the cliff onto BoJack's deck. It cuts to BoJack lying in his bed when his eyes spring open from sleep.
The rest of the theme shows BoJack's face in a locked perspective as he transitions to different scenes.
BoJack moves out of his bedroom where posters of magazines featuring him from his Horsin' Around years can be seen.
He then passes through his living room while a scene from Horsin' Around plays on his TV (it changes to a scene of Philbert in Season 5). He drifts past his kitchen as he takes a sip of coffee from a mug.
The characters and events in his living room vary depending on who is living or involved with BoJack at the time. Diane, Princess Carolyn and Todd all left BoJack in Season 3. Diane is last seen there in Stop the Presses as she accompanies Mr. Peanutbutter to Labrador Peninsula in the next episode, and later has a falling-out with BoJack in It's You. Princess Carolyn is last seen in BoJack's place in Best Thing That Ever Happened in which she gets fired by BoJack. Todd is last seen in It's You in which he moves out of BoJack's house after learning BoJack has had sex with Emily.
The 2nd part: New Places
The second part varies for each season.
In Season 1, BoJack is seen drinking a Frappuccino as he glides through a grocery store. Behind him, Princess Carolyn takes a call on her Bluetooth cellphone. Todd seems to have caused a large pile of fruit to collapse by picking out an apple. Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane are looking at their phones. The paparazzi birds then start taking pictures of BoJack, to his annoyance.
In Season 2, BoJack again drinks a Frappuccino as he glides through the set of Secretariat, and he is wearing Secretariat's blue and white tank top. Princess Carolyn texts on her phone. Todd, not looking where he's going, topples a light over and breaks it, much to Princess Carolyn's disapproval. Mr. Peanutbutter brings Diane food in a bag with her name on it (they disappear after Diane has gone to Cordovia at the end of Hank After Dark). Lenny Turteltaub is seen talking with the director Kelsey Jannings (Abe D'Catfish replaces her after The Shot).
Season 3 shows BoJack in a tuxedo at night time, in front of a theater showing Secretariat. The press are behind him taking pictures. Princess Carolyn and Ana Spanakopita are behind him on their phones, Princess Carolyn looks annoyed by Ana. Diane pulls Mr. Peanutbutter away from A Ryan Seacrest Type while Todd gets blinded by camera flashings and topples on a queue stand.
Season 4 shows kaleidoscope imagery behind BoJack that includes events and people from his past, including Princess Carolyn, Todd, cotton candy, Herb Kazzaz and the Horsin' Around cast, Kelsey, and his parents Beatrice and Butterscotch from Downer Ending, where he made up a story of them being nice to him and giving him ice cream.
In Season 5, a thunderstorm's lightning flashings bring the background from BoJack's house to the set of Philbert. The two places look strikingly alike. BoJack is wearing his costume. He eyes the set suspiciously as he seems to glide through the same place a second time. A crew member is moving a large container (Mr. Peanutbutter and more crew members show up from The Amelia Earhart Story onward after the former has joined the cast of Philbert). Flip McVicker is finger framing the set, and Gina Cazador is looking around. Todd and Princess Carolyn are in the kitchen; the former signing a contract, the latter on her phone.
The 3rd part: Party Night
The third scene of the opening theme shows BoJack at night in his house, wearing a tux and having a party. He drinks alcohol out of a shot glass. Todd, Lenny and Sarah Lynn are there. Sarah Lynn disappears after she dies at the end of That's Too Much, Man!
The TV is on, and what is on it changes in each season. In Season 1, it's Sarah Lynn's music video for Prickly Muffin; in Season 2, it's Tom Jumbo-Grumbo talking to Sebastian St. Clair; in Season 3, it's Jumbo-Grumbo talking to Sextina Aquafina; in Season 4, it's Woodchuck Coodchuck-Berkowitz talking; and in Season 5, it's A Ryan Seacrest Type talking about Philbert.
BoJack moves through this scene, rather in a straight line to the left looking rather disoriented. His hair becomes disheveled, tie undone, and eyes bloodshot as he gets drunk. He drifts backward to his deck, and falls over the rail. Strangely he seems to fall back into his own swimming pool, where two women swim under and above him. Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter look into the pool concerned. The two palm trees in BoJack's house can be seen behind them. A helicopter flies over and beams its light at BoJack.
The 4th part: In the Swimming Pool
BoJack holds his hand over his face as it transitions to daytime. With sunglasses on, he is now lying on an inflatable pool bed in his swimming pool. The camera zooms out from BoJack and shows a shot of his house as the show's title appears and the theme ends.
Season 6: The Haunting Past
In A Horse Walks into a Rehab, the intro starts normally but quickly becomes distorted within a second. The music dies down, and a film burn effect cuts the intro short, starting the episode immediately.
Starting in the second episode, The New Client, the opening theme plays at its full length again. It is stylistically different from the previous seasons. In the first shot, the sunrise in the background has been replaced by the galaxy image from the planetarium on the night Sarah Lynn died. Instead of flying towards BoJack's bedroom window, the camera flies past his house, and cuts to a younger BoJack in his prime opening his eyes in his Horsin' Around dressing room, with his back turned to the mirror. From this point on, the intro replays important moments from BoJack's life in the series, with film burn effects cutting in-between.
While BoJack stays in the center of the screen and faces the camera like in previous intros, his facial expressions are noticeably different this time: in the previous seasons, BoJack's expression stayed mostly blank, and sometimes looked annoyed; in this season, however, BoJack's face cycles among expressions of fear, guilt, shame, and shock, as he is finally sober. His eyes no longer get bloodshot preceding falling into the pool.
The places seen in the intro are as follows:
From the Horsin' Around era:
- The Horsin' Around kitchen set, where a young Sarah Lynn, as her character Sabrina, sits behind the table (from Prickly-Muffin). It zooms out to the sound stage where Herb Kazzaz stands up from his director's chair (from The Telescope).
From Season 1:
- Herb's bedroom, with a cancer-ridden Herb (from The Telescope).
From Season 2:
- The desert outside Tesuque, with balloons with glow sticks attached to them flying across (from Escape from L.A.).
From Season 3:
- The hallway at Whale World with the words "BoJack Kills" written on the wall (from BoJack Kills).
- The forest of seaweed outside Pacific Ocean City (from Fish Out Of Water).
From Season 4:
- The interior of the dilapidated Sugarman Summer Home (from The Old Sugarman Place).
- Beatrice's room at her last nursing home, with a wheelchair-bound Beatrice staring blankly (from Time's Arrow).
From Season 5:
- The funeral parlor which BoJack mistook as Beatrice's (from Free Churro).
- The Philbert premiere party, with Gina Cazador, Todd Chavez and Princess Carolyn on the red carpet (from Head in the Clouds).
Then the intro takes BoJack to the planetarium where Sarah Lynn died, with the galaxy image as the night sky. BoJack falls from a balcony there into darkness, with only the whites of his eyes visible.
BoJack ends up falling into a swimming pool, and the remaining part of the intro is mostly similar to those in the previous seasons.
When Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter gather by the pool above BoJack, Mr. Peanutbutter has a different, more concerned, facial expression. And later in A Quick One, While He's Away, again by the pool's edge, Diane's hair has grown longer and the shaved undercut is gone. She is in a new jacket and has visibly gained weight, as seen at the end of the previous episode. Mr. Peanutbutter's facial expression has reverted to the more relaxed one seen in previous seasons.
Videos
